Friday's Movies

Best of 2011 Movie Night

Super was a shoo in for Friday night, the question was what to play with it. I considered Machete Maidens Unleashed!, a documentary about movies shot in the Philippines like For Y'ur Height Only.



But that movie is just shot after shot of breasts and explosions. Who wants that? I thought it would be fun to watch The Basement, a movie started in 1989 but released only this year. On VHS!



But why reward procrastination? And, no, it's not a good rejoinder to point out that we watched movies this year that were made available after a long unattainability (Dark Night of the Scarecrow, Desperate Lives, Humanoids From the Deep and stay tuned for Bad Ronald).

The only movie left that achieved eligibility is Trollhunter. It's better than Troll and has more trolls than Troll 2. 

Super may be spelled SUPER, I'm not sure.

Here's what happened two weeks ago:

The Best of 2011

Movies



1. Super
As I've had to say anytime I declared Super as my favorite movie of this year, "No, I don't mean Super 8". It's understandable. I did guess Super 8 would be the best movie of the year. For the record, Super 8 would be in the top ten.
2. 2Everything 2 Terrible 2: Tokyo Drift
Well this is ridiculous. A 45 minute mash-up movie is the second best movie of the year? Well, no, you're ridiculous! Stay tuned for Everything Is Terrible's third movie, an all-dog production showing at Project Lodge in January. Who wants to go?
3. Hanna
Both this and Super were compared to Kick-Ass, what with Hanna having a girl as a killer assassin. Really, both are better than Kick-Ass and I liked Kick-Ass. For crying out loud, Nicolas Cage is in Kick-Ass.
4. Source Code
5. Tabloid
It was merely very good until the term "Spirit Booger" appeared.

Television



1. Community
To remind you: The fake flashback episode (the best episode of any show this year), D and D, My Dinner With Andre, the return of paintball and six alternate realities.
2. Downton Abbey
Oddly, this is essentially replacing Cougar Town from last year's list.Which makes me think of Cougarton Abbey:

3. Louie
4. Parks and Recreation
5. Breaking Bad

Albums



1. Yesterday is a Distant Dream - OJ Law
2. Mountaintops - Mates of State
3. Thao and Mirah
4. Cannibal Courtship - Dengue Fever
5. Wild Flag

Songs


1. Fantastic Adventure (feat. Liyana Fizi) - OJ Law


2. Cement Slipper - Dengue Fever


3. Romance - Wild Flag


4. Maracas - Mates of State


5. How Dare You - Thao and Mirah


6. Don't Move - Phantogram


7. Secretary Song - The Go! Team


8. Make Some Noise - Beastie Boys
This gets the award for best video, because I like identifying celebrities.


9. Car Crash - Telekinesis!


10. Ten-Twenty-Ten - Generationals


Books



1. The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry - Jon Ronson
2. Paying For It - Chester Brown
3. Bossypants - Tina Fey
4. Zombie Spaceship Wasteland - Patton Oswalt
5. Mister Wonderful: A Love Story - Daniel Clowes



Podcasts



1. Stop Podcasting Yourself
2. Comedy Bang Bang
3. How Was Your Week with Julie Klausner
4. Who Charted?
5. Mark Kermode and Simon Mayo's Film Reviews


Best BMN


1. Birdemic
2. Death Drug
3. Breathing Fire
4. Silver Dragon Ninja
5. White Fire

Today's Movies

Christmas II: Your Santa is a Werewolf Movie Night

I don't know how much longer we can do Christmas movies for Bad Movie Night. I have a couple more in mind. If I ever resort to 1980's To All a Good Night you'll know the bottom of the barrel has been scraped.

With a name like Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny this is either some sick shit or a kids movie. Sigh, it's a kids movie. Here's what's going to happen. In the movie, Santa tells a story to some kids which starts a completely different movie with its own separate credits and everything (!). What I want to know is does Santa say, "Kids, gather 'round. Have I got a story for you executive produced by Armand Cerami with original music by Ralph Falco!" Now some editions of this movie just throw that other movie, which is Thumbelina by the way:

onto the end of the tape (because this did not come out on DVD). My version has Thumbelina in the middle, so we're going to do some on-the-fly editing around it.

With this shortened running time we're also going to watch the

episode

from the guy who wrote Beetlejuice!

Invasion U.S.A. is from the guy who made the nuttiest Friday the  13th movie. Say, next month has a Friday the13th in it. Stay tuned! 

It's not to be confused with the movie Mystery Science Theater 3000 watched:

The novelization looks like this:

It is the explosioniest movie we have ever seen.

Since BMN is still not long enough let's watch the

episode

Side note: Can someone with a Metafilter account tell this guy that he's thinking of last week's movie Here Comes Santa Claus?

Here's what happened last week:

Today's Movies

Christmas Movie Night

 

Would Die Hard be just as good if it wasn't set during the holidays? "Now I have a machine gun. Ho, Ho, Ho" wouldn't make a lot of sense. Without Christmas Die Hard is just Skyscraper:



Which is to say almost as good and with uncomfortable breasts.

Of course, without Christmas Here Comes Santa Claus would be really confusing. As it stands, and don't tell the people that don't read this blog, it's a G rated musical whose original title is J'ai rencontré le Père Noël. That's right, this movie is French!

I wouldn't mind the singing if there was nudity. Or nude singing. Like in The Wicker Man!

Censored Version:

There were six Rockys, four Rambos but somehow only one Cobra. Unless you count Cindy Crawford's Fair Game, which is based on the same book.



Sure Cobra has the standard cop playing by his own rules on the trail of a serial killer. But Christmas! And of course Sly Stallone saying things like, "As long as we play by these bullshit rules and the killer doesn't, we're gonna lose!"

Here's what happened last week:

What's On The TV?

Where we ask you, the reader, to name what's on the TV in an old photograph. Today's mindbender:

Today's Movies

BMX BMN

I asked people if they'd rather watch Rad over Virgins From Hell and the votes are in. All two people chose Rad, sending Virgins From Hell to the Better Luck Next Time List yet again. So I hope you like totally radical bike footage.

The directors of both these movies have films in the Bad Movie Night canon. BMX Bandits' Brian Trenchard-Smith also made Escape 2000. Remember the movie that randomly had a werewolf?

 

Rad's Hal Needham made The Cannonball Run. Remember the movie with random Adrienne Barbeau cleavage?



Here's what happened last week:



Since this was short, here's more Blastfighter:

Friday's Movies

You Can't Go Home Again Movie Night

For some reason there's a least two movies about Hasselhoffy guys (and in one case Hasselhoff) returning to his hometown only to be terrorized by jerks. I thought the theme was a stretch at first but maybe these movies are analogies for going home for the holidays.

But there's a secret theme that's more apt for Thanksgiving time. Blastfighter is about a guy (Michael Sopkiw!)



who's given up guns. It leads to a pretty obvious anti-hunting sentiment. I mean, the bad guys love hunting but Sopkiw has a pet deer. Yikes, that can't end well. This should all prove to be controversial with it being the middle of Wisconsin's deer hunting season. A lively discussion is sure to follow.

This will be our second Lamberto Bava movie after Demons. We're sure to see Demons 2 in the future and if we want to finish the Sopkiw Tetralogy we should watch Bava's Devil Fish for the bonus third movie.

Two things to look/hear out for in Blastfighter. It uses the same music as in Massacre in Dinosaur Valley and there's a cameo from the banjo player in Deliverance.

Oops, I spent the whole time talking about Blastfighter. All I can say about The Final Alliance is since Hasselhoff has a pet puma in it maybe I should have made this Guys Returning to Their Hometown With An Inappropriate Pet Who Then Run Into Trouble By Locals. This sheds a whole new light on both movies. Those locals are just sticklers about Animal Zoning Regulations.

Here's what happened last week:

Today's Movies

Anti-War Movie Night

Are these movies really anti-war? I don't believe in authorial intent and that's how I read them so, yes, they are. But you should come and tell me how you feel after viewing them. Let me guess: Sleepy?

Robot Jox was directed by Stuart Gordon, who made past BMN movies From Beyond and Re-Animator.

Robot Jox was made in the eighties so maybe that's why it's rated PG but contains blood and nudity. Like Clash of the Titans or Sheena: Queen of the Jungle! 

Double Down is such a good movie I thought about saving it for the next anniversary or 100th-some movie. But those things are too far off. I think we're around 343. Hey let's celebrate the number of frames in which John F. Kennedy's presidential limousine can be seen in the Zapruder film!

The director of Double Down is Neil Breen. This guy:

He certainly follows the ABCs of film making, Anything But Coherent. You can visit the site for his most recent movie, I am Here... Now, here... now.

There's this weird quiz about Double Down that was clearly written by a robot. I'll give you some hints: Donal Logue and Ben Stiller are not in DD and it is not directed by Robert Zemeckis.

 Of course, we will be breaking at half time for some Double Downs from KFC!

Here's what happened last week: